Sarajevo

Fisher - Sarajevo

Sarajevo is the capital city of Bosnia. It was known to be a beautiful city with much culture and happy inhabitants. However, during the years of 1992-1996 the city was under siege during the Bosnian War. The siege of Sarajevo was muffled by the media during these years and little news about the on-goings in the area was heard. I was familiar with this terrible event at a young age as a grew up with an evacuee of Bosnia. My friend Amar and I grew up and went to school together since the tender age of 5. I knew he was from Europe, particularly a place called Bosnia, which I figured to be Eastern European. Sadly, this was the extent of my knowledge of his situation at the time. It was not until I entered high school that my mother explained his situation to me. She made me aware of the war and atrocity that he and his parents had fled from. Had I known this when we had gone to school together I don't know if I would have acted any differently toward him, or if I could have even grasped the concept of what his family (in US and Bosnia) was going through. Whatever the case would have been, we are still friends today and he returns to Bosnia quite often to visit his family there. Lucky for him, Sarajevo is the fastest growing city in Bosnia, and a bustling capital with a vibrant culture. I would love to visit with him next time he returns.

With that in mind, the discussion this week is on the book The Cellist of Sarajevo and the movie Welcome to Sarajevo. They show different perspectives of what went on in the city during the siege. The book follows three separate people who are linked by the appearance of a cellist whom played everyday for 22 days in the streets of Sarajevo. He was playing for the 22 innocent lives lost during a bombing. The cellist inspired thousands who heard of his cause and how he continued to play everyday despite threats to his life and proximity to constant danger. This was his way of standing up to oppression, and showing his resolve in the face of a "never-ending" siege upon his city and his people. The people in turn mimicked his resolve, and protected him when he played. The Cellist of Sarajevo gives the reader an image of the victim's standpoint during the siege of Sarajevo.

 The movie, Welcome to Sarajevo, follows different groups of reporters who were in the city during the siege. There are those who seek fame, focus on a small section, or try to capture the entire tale. Either way, their efforts were to expose to the world what was happening in the streets of Sarajevo. Regardless of whether this was done for fame, the story, or to save lives, it needed to be done. People need to see what is happening to their fellow man, across the world or in their backyard. Every nation should be aware of what was happening in there, and these were the people to make sure that everyone knew. Yet, despite their efforts, the media turned a blind eye to what was happening in Bosnia. No one interceded on the innocent's behalf or stopped the mass killings. I suppose the world assumed things would work themselves out in 1992... 93.. 94... and so on. The truth must be told, the world cannot ignore the lives of countless innocents lost. We must pave the way the a new future, one where we are aware of the atrocities that mankind is capable of. We must have the knowledge and intelligence to choose other options, or crush ignorance before it rears its ugly head.

The Pianist

Fisher - The Pianist

This week we looked at The Pianist. Both the film and book version. The book is an autobiography by Polish-Jewish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman. It is a first person telling of his time during the war. The film, directed by Roman Polanski, is a third person retelling of the story with Adrian Brody starring as Wladyslaw Szpilman. The viewer is thrust into the turmoil immediately in the opening scene of the movie. Szpilman is at the Warsaw radio station giving his final performance while the city is being besieged by the German army. Polanski's portrayal of these first moments, during the siege of Warsaw is very moving and powerful for the viewer. However, Szpilman's vivid description in his autobiography is moving on a personal level, as many of his friends and family died that day. This is an example of how we are effected through different mediums.

 The film not being first-person, the viewer is unaware of Szpilman's thoughts and is left to meerly speculate. Polanski's rendering of the book is quite moving on the other hand. A Holocaust survivor himself, Polanski has the firsthand experience to put on display the grotesque artistry of the horrors of the war. He succeeds in evoking emotions in the audience with his depictions of the atrocities Szpilman has witnessed. From the soldiers forcing the people to dance, to the executions, and pulling the broken body of the boy from under the wall, Polanski does not fail to elicit a response from his viewers.

Yet the movie is not completely true to the book. The autobiography is based on Szpilman's experiences, witnessed by his own eyes. While reading, we know of his internal struggles, how he deals with what is happening around him. It is a much more personal telling of the tale. The film version is a representation of what Szpilman saw, shown to us by Roman Polanski. An example of a major change from book to film is the scene with Wladyslaw Szpilman playing for the German officer Wilm Hosenfeld. In the film, we see Adrian Brody play the Chopin Ballade m 1 in G minor on a decently tuned parlor piano without any practice. While in reality, and as we read in the book, Szpilman played c#-minor Nocturne on an aged, unkept, out-of-tune piano without having played or practiced for 2 1/2 years. Not only that, he was also malnourished, exhausted, terrified, in no state to play the rendition that Brody's Szpilman gives for the Nazi. This is a major change between book and film. That pivotal moment when it seemed Szpilman's life is hanging in the balance and he was told to play, he choose c#-minor Nocturne an "autumnal and introspective" piece. Polanski's choosing of Chopin played at that moment could be his own artistic view of his theme for the Pianist/Holocaust.